Rebooting a franchise only a few years after the last installment seemed like a strange idea when it was first announced. Apparently, the Tobey Maguire/Sam Raimi series was becoming extremely expensive to fund, so Sony have made the decision to overhaul the web-slinging superhero with a hip new director and hot young cast. While sporadically delivering the thrills, the resulting blockbuster is gratingly familiar, with new helmer Webb (ha) not really being allowed to stretch his muscles all that much. This is firmly guided towards a younger (dare I say, more tween-friendly) audience.
This is the origin tale of Spider-Man by way of Peter Parker (Garfield) all over again. He lost his parents when he was very young and was raised by his endlessly kind aunt (Field) and uncle (Sheen), who instill in him a strong moral compass. After finding a briefcase that belonged to his father, Peter traces it to a brilliant, disabled professor at a Manhattan laboratory (Ifans). While he's there, two things happen: he gets bitten by a radioactive spider AND he flirts with Emma Stone's downright adorable Gwen Stacey. Discovering that he now has remarkable powers, a tragic crime that results in the loss of someone close to him sees Peter use his newfound skills to become a masked vigilante. This causes friction with Gwen's New York City cop aul' lad (played by the underrated Leary), who wants to arrest the newly-monikered 'Spider-Man'.
While it delivers several mandatory action sequences, the strongest points of The Amazing Spider-Man actually lie in its more intimate moments - be they between Garfield and Sheen, or Garfield and Stone. The former is a touching story that becomes the catalyst for the whole plot, and the latter a crowd-pleasing romance with obvious chemistry between both leads. That romance is a huge part of what Sony is selling the film on; the action alone won't do that anymore. Nevertheless, while Webb does a more than solid job with the action sequences, it simply doesn’t have that 'wow' factor and you can see Stone itching to give Gwen something more - something the mostly functional script doesn’t really allow for.
If I sound negative aboout The Amazing Spider-Man, it's because expectations for films of this ilk have now reached a certain point. Garfield is a very strong lead, both as Parker and Spidey, playing the character with a darkness that Maguire never really nailed. There's something refreshingly ambiguous about his Peter Parker; you're never quite sure of him, and therefore, you get why he'd be such a social outcast. During the film's quiter moments with Stone - especially towards the end - proceedings are cranked up a gear, showcasing Webb's strengths as a fine director of actors and romance (his first film (500) Days of Summer is superb). Ifans is grand but doesn't have a lot to do other than being incapable of clapping, while Leary provides some welcomed moments of humour.
Frustratingly similar to an all-too-recent series but not without its plus points, The Amazing Spider-Man is mostly a showcase for Garfield and Stone's abundant chemistry and lays the groundwork for a somewhat inevitable sequel nicely. Just don't expect to be blown away.
